NEWS: Mary Beth Evans, 'ENDERS, Laura Wright, GREEK

Live EASTENDERS watched by 16.6 million
Some 16.6 million viewers tuned in to Friday's EASTENDERS episode to see who murdered Archie Mitchell, the BBC says. The killer was finally revealed in the 30-minute episode, which was filmed and broadcast live to mark the BBC One soap's 25th anniversary. It featured 51 members of the cast, who had been rehearsing for three days. In the finale, Stacey Slater, played by actress Lacey Turner, admitted she was Archie's murderer - the culmination of a long-running plotline.

Laura Wright spending weekend at family's Calabash restaurant
A former Azalea Festival Queen is back in town this weekend. Laura Wright plays Carly Corinthos Jacks on GENERAL HOSPITAL. Bet you didn't know her family owns the Sunrise Pancake House in Calabash. That's where she'll be this weekend introducing wines from her winery in California and signing autographs.

Mary Beth Evans tries her hand at comedy in "Barbra's Wedding"
"This is so much fun after all my years on daytime. In my heart, and in real life, I think I am a funny person," says Evans. "I left DAYS again last February, and then I did some episodic television. But I really wanted to do a play. Television is so fast-moving, and I wanted to really work on a piece and be able to try different things. In daytime, you memorize your lines, show up, and then work on instinct. The one funny thing is that I used to memorize pages of scripts every day, and for some reason, it took me 22 days to memorize this script."

For much of her daytime career, Evans was paired onscreen with her good friend Stephen Nichols. Now that he's recently joined CBS' top-rated soap, THE YOUNG AND THE RESTLESS (as business tycoon Tucker McCall), would Evans consider hopping to yet another soap opera? "I know there's a big fan campaign to get us back together. Look, I'm game for whatever, and Y&R is such a good show," she says. "I love doing daytime, because I love having a regular job and not having to work at a bank."